Wormbender's Circus

Zoe left Sebastian sleeping peacefully and walked to the control cabin. Casey was, as always, hunched over star maps and charts he was calling up from the main memory.

“Where next, Case?”

He looked up. “Well, we were going to try and get some Omega centipedes, but we can’t do much till Seb’s leg heals up. And after all the trauma I thought we could do with a break. So I figure we might spend a couple of days cruising the star field of Sagittarius.”

“Oh yes!” said Zoe. “Everyone who’s been through there says it’s just the most amazing experience imaginable.”

Casey smiled. “That’s what I’ve heard too.”

“Seb. Seb, wake up.” Zoe ruffled Sebastian’s hair and shook his shoulder. He turned and looked up at her. “What’s up?”

“Come and see,” Zoe said softly. Sebastian rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. She took his arm and looped it around her neck. Sebastian grabbed the piece of scrap tubing he was using as a makeshift cane in his free hand, and together they shuffled to the control cabin. The spectacle which was presented to his eyes took his breath away.

Before the Semiramis lay the star field of Sagittarius, close to the heart of the galaxy. An incredible panoply of millions of tightly clustered stars lay before them, filling the cabin with their intense light.

“It’s beautiful,” Sebastian whispered in awe. “It’s the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.”

“Casey and I have been here for hours already, just staring...” said Zoe dreamily, her voice trailing away. Sebastian settled into a seat. His mind sought words for what he was seeing, but soon gave up the unequal struggle in order to simply drink it in. Stars scattered like dust, mere light days apart, as far as the eye could see. The energy surging out of the star cloud, radio, infra-red, x- and gamma-rays, as well as the visible spectrum, had its effect on the erg. It emerged from the ship, raced ahead, circled and leapt, alive with shimmering blue fire, coasting ahead of the ship like a dolphin, soaking up the energy, revelling in it, to the ever greater delight of the crew.

The ship’s own batteries also benefitted from the exposure to this vast, turbulent outpouring of energy. In no time, every system on the ship was fully charged.

For several days, the Semiramis cruised the outer fringes of the star cloud, while its crew marvelled at the sight and made endless recordings of it. The mending of Sebastian’s leg went almost unnoticed, although Zoe encouraged him to spend progressively more time standing on it, until at last he was able to give Igor his cane to be consigned anew to the ship’s workshop.

“Time to go,” said Casey with a sigh.

As the star cloud of Sagittarius gradually receded astern, all eyes remained fixed on it, still marvelling at its ineffable beauty.

The following day, Casey was surprised to observe another ship behind them, following at a slow, steady pace. He instructed the main memory to identify it, but there was no record of it in the memory.

“Strange,” Casey muttered to himself. “Must be very new.”

“What’s even stranger,” said Sebastian, poring over the instruments, “is that she’s making quite good speed, without any visible motive power in operation.”

“She’s following a course parallel to ours,” said Casey. “What say we stop engines and let her pull level?”

“Fine by me,” said Sebastian. “Zoe?”

“Yep. Fine by me too. I love a mystery”

So the Semiramis stopped her engines and waited for the mysterious ship to pull level.

When she approached, the crew stared in amazement. The compact main body of the ship was at the hub of a vast silver umbrella several kilometres across.

“A solar sailor,” said Casey. “That’s incredible.”

“A what?” said Zoe.

“A solar sailor. They’ve been talked about for more than a century, plans have been drawn up from time to time, but I’ve never before known of one being built. Till now.”

“What is it?” said Zoe.

“It uses the solar wind, the stream of ions flowing out from any star, in the same way that a yacht on Earth uses the wind. The wind coming out of Sagittarius would have to be a veritable tempest.”

“Casey, you’re a little behind the times,” said Sebastian, glancing at the screen in front of him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there are at least two more of them coming up behind.”

“What!”

Zoe laughed. “I think you should update your memory banks first chance you get, Casey.”

The solar sailor was almost level with the Semiramis now. She was a beautiful thing, a work of masterful engineering carefully attuned to the nature of deep space, man in perfect harmony with this most alien environment.

Casey called her. “Solar sailor, this is the Semiramis. I’m Casey MacArthur.”

The face of a genial bearded man appeared on the monitor.

"Semiramis, this is the sailor Sunstream. I’m Mike Lehmkuhl. Pleased to meet you. Are you not the famed flying circus?”

Casey puffed out his chest with pride. “We are, or we will be when we’ve got everything together. I didn’t realise our fame had spread so far.”

“You’d be surprised how fast word travels out here,” Lehmkuhl said genially.

“That’s a fine ship you have, Mr. Lehmkuhl,” Casey went on. “I wasn’t aware that anyone had built a solar sailor.”

Lehmkuhl laughed heartily. “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do, Mr. MacArthur. There are a dozen now, all here in the Sagittarius Regatta.”

“You appear to be in the lead.”

Lehmkuhl smiled. “Well, we are at the moment.”

“Where do you end up?”

“Jansky. If you’re passing, come and say hello.”

“Thanks,” said Casey. “We’ll do that. Best of luck.”

By this time, Sunstream had flown gracefully past, swept along by the ionic gale swelling her sail.

Casey kept the Semiramis moving slowly with short bursts from the thrusters, allowing the rest of the sailors to overhaul her. Sebastian lit up the ship’s hull illuminations in greeting, and each sailor as it passed fired off a coloured flare in response.

Some were flying singly, others were in twos and threes, fighting to seize the advantage of any variation in the ionic wind in order to out-distance a rival.

Casey watched with joy as they passed. “There’ll be a hot time on Jansky,” he grinned. “I don’t imagine that place has ever known anything like it. Hope they’ve got enough beer!”